War is a story is an ancient tale old as love. Somehow, over millions of years, love has never managed to conquer all. I'm not holding my breath that it ever will.
A few weeks ago, my kids were chattering nonstop at the kitchen table like they usually do. That day in particular, their discussion grabbed my attention. I listened to their four-year-old voices talk about Russia, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, the weather in Iraq, and danger in Afghanistan. Being a military family is a bizarre trip sometimes. Salmon, broccoli, sweet potato, and lively discourse about international affairs. Any given Sunday at the Leres. I wasn't entirely surprised by my kids' conversation. For weeks, they had listened to their father and me talk about the possibility of war with Russia. They were within earshot as we discussed multiple contingencies we needed to brace for. Each conversation we would land in a similar spot: there was no way to know what we might need to do or when, but we knew we’d figure it out as we go—together.
Fourteen years of marriage to the military, Iraq, and Afghanistan have changed me. I ask different questions.
In the face of hardship and suffering, I think we tend to ask the wrong things.
"Why?"
"Who?"
"How?"
When your heart feels heavy and your head is spinning, you want answers. People want something to point to. They need someone to blame. In some instances, explanations are clear. Many times, they're unanswerable. Often, answers to these kinds of questions are far less important than we make them out to be. Perhaps a more useful query is, "What now?"
Crises gift us watershed moments of reckoning and reflection. When tragedy befalls us personally, we have an important decision to make: How will I respond? Will I let this experience break or transform me? Sometimes we're on the fringe of horror, watching from the audience instead. This privileged vantage point has a choice all its own—look away or down deep inside. Witnessing calamity stirs something in our souls. We may engage with others with more compassion and intention. Often, pictures of hardship deepen gratitude and help us appreciate our own world differently.
Watching at images of armored vehicles rolling into a country is jarring. Seeing a little girl torn from her father's arms will shatter your heart. This week much of the world watched horrified as Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, living among soldiers carrying machine guns is an everyday reality for men, women, and children around the globe. There are swaths of people who have only known a lifetime of fear and war. For them, peace is fiction to read about (but only if they’re lucky enough to have access to education and a book).
We forget. Remember Afghanistan? The place is still a gut-wrenching mess. It's just no longer top of mind for most people because it's not above the fold in the press. We grow nearsighted as we live our daily dramas in Western bubble wrap. News outlets and social media feeds own our attention and choose our focus. Depending on the daily coverage or an algorithmic whim, we might think about difficult situations happening to other people in faraway places for days, possibly weeks. If stirred up enough, we may even contribute to a GoFundMe and feel better for a bit. But the concern almost always fades. We move on when we see new pictures and read different headlines.
In the segments of time when we are pulled in by the realities of humanity’s horror and grief, most people don’t go unaffected. Crises are destabilizing and rock our sense of control, even if we're only bystanders to another person's pain. If things feel out of control, humans want to predict. And then we want to prepare. Preparation assuages anxiety while action provides an illusion of control. Both of these things are fool's errands though. The problem is that, too often, we armor up for the wrong threat or a problem that will only ever exist in our imagination.
In the last decade and a half, I've decided "What's next?" is a question that's hard to answer with accuracy and precision. Many times when I venture to guess, I'm wrong. So I've stopped. Instead, I try to step back, allow the future to unfold, and meet it moment by moment. My future self will have perspective and experience I don't possess right now. I trust that, come what may, the person I am down the road will be able to handle challenges better than I could today.
How or when will this end? I don't know. In some ways, it won't. War seems to be an infinite story. I think the better question to consider is "What now?" How then, shall we live?
This won’t be the last war my children learn about and live in some tangential way. History doesn't seem to change because sometimes love isn't enough. But that's no reason to stop. Sometimes, when we feel helpless, the most powerful and productive thing we can do is love with reckless abandon and not worry about the outcome.
Love is what the world needs and can't seem to get enough of.
Go make more of it.
Everywhere we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, and our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together. This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love with prevail. We will believe in love's promise.
- Bell Hooks
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13
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